Danbury High team knows about the world

DANBURY -- Four Danbury High School students beat 13 teams from Fairfield and Westchester counties in a competition that turned their knowledge of world affairs into a paid trip to Washington, D.C.

The team -- seniors
Christopher Forstrom
, 17;
Nick Arconti
, 17; and
Ibad Shah
, 17; and sophomore
Benjamin Altman
-- will travel to the nation's capital April 3 to 5 for Academic WorldQuest.
They'll compete against 53 teams of their peers from around the country on their knowledge of current affairs, world leaders, geography, recent history, flags, international organizations, countries, regions, the world economy, culture and religion.
"Some questions were pretty challenging," Arconti said. "Some of the questions were pretty trivial, and some questions were statistically based."
Senior

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's Stamford campus Feb. 14, but she couldn't attend the national competition so Forstrom won her spot.
The students had 30 seconds to respond to each multiple-choice question. They worked as a team after the questions were posted on a giant screen. They correctly answered 67 of the 97 questions to win the competition.
Danbury High has competed in the program since the World Affairs Councils of America started it in Washington, D.C., in March 2003. The city school finished second at the regional level last year.
"They are asking the kids to look at a lot of significant issues that tie the world together,'' said Danbury High social studies teacher

Ken Keller
, who organizes the competition.
"I think it's important that students have mind-challenging activities," he said. "They are learning life skills to make connections."
The four students, who have a study guide for the coming competition, each has a routine for keeping up with the news every day and some favorite resources.
Altman reads The Economist, Shah uses the BBC Web site, Arconti reads Time and The Week magazines, and Forstrom looks at aggregate news Web sites, like Digg.com, for links to the stories of the day and people discussing them.
"The competition encourages me to learn more specifics than I otherwise would have pursued," Altman said. "So I have a greater understanding than I would have otherwise."
Shah said he's always been able to memorize a lot of geography facts, which has helped him in the competition. His sister was on previous teams and encouraged him to try out.
Arconti said he always stays up-to-date on world affairs.
"I was surprised at the breadth of knowledge I had," he said. "I was thinking I just knew about current domestic foreign policy events, but afterward I realized I knew more global issues."